Tie-In Fiction (Freelance)
A D&D fan growing up, I got back into tabletop RPGs in 2016 when my sons and I started playing Pathfinder (1st edition). We loved Wayne Reynolds's artwork and the enormity of character options and published adventures, so I was thrilled by the opportunity to contribute this piece of flash fiction. The story prompt was the above illustration of Iconic characters Ezren and Fumbus by Juan Miguel Lopez Baraea, found in Pathfinder Lost Omens: Pathfinder Society Guide.
Sample:
He froze as if afraid, thrilled in fact, and spoke an incantation. A familiar blue glow spread in response, illuminating an unseen ledge and the zigzag of stone steps leading up to it. The glow’s source was a new inscription, and even Fumbus marveled at how much larger and longer it was than the previous puzzles.
“Hmm…” the wizard purred proudly. “I can read the writing on the wall.”
“Drawings,” Fumbus corrected him.
Ezren gave no argument, already ascending the first landing on his way to the ledge. Fumbus had been fascinated to watch him decipher the other inscriptions, but the ritual had grown repetitive. He was suddenly less concerned with the meaning behind the magic and more interested in the mucus carpeting the chamber floor. It coated the gold coins like paste. When one yielded to his tugging, he became suspicious whether it really was a coin at all, but rather some kind of shed scale. He prepared to bite it to find out for sure, then stopped with his cheeks spread wide.
The chest was smiling at him.
Full Story (1500 words): available for free here.
A novelette contribution to the Bayou faction book of Malifaux Third Edition. Unlike my other Malifaux story (see below), this one portrays a conflict between established and playable game characters. I had fun watching Jackie Chan videos and shamisen performances to get in the right mindset. Creative direction was by Nathan Caroland and Eric Johns while Tim Akers, Kyle Rowan, & Mike Wallace are credited with additional writing on the project.
Sample:
The Competishine went on for hours. Their temple of spirits and vapors pumped outbillow y black smoke and all manner of tantalizing odors. Those flowing off Popcorn’s end were rich and woodsy, while the Brewmaster’s work wafted sweet and creamy, with a hint of sharpness. The combination drove their fans crazy. Their appetites whetted, the assembled Gremlins dove into the complimentary beverages offered by (or stolen from) the Whiskey Gamin with feverish enthusiasm. It inspired competitions of their own, sometimes Gremlin versus Gremlin, later pig versus pig, because the effect the ‘shine had on the swine was hilarious to any un-trampled onlookers. As the day wore on, they stomped the benches and hung from the heavy Bayou trees and rolled in the mud until not a one of them recalled the Competishine itself. By the afternoon, when the humidity was thick as molasses and the hazy sun beat them slow and senseless, most Gremlins were snoring loudly, propped on each other’s heads and ends with their limbs all akimbo.
Inside, Popcorn Turner and Cooper Jones were barely awake themselves, nestled comfortably inside sacks of sugar and yeast. Here and there one would climb out, exposing the vermin nestled in their body’s warmth, to stir the boiling contents of dirty tubs and basins and to refill whatever older hooch they were hoisting. Popcorn would pause to scratch his beard and his hindquarters, grinning proudly at his competitor’s side of the structure, croaking, “Thataboys” and “Don’t give up, now” and “I’m right proud o’ you, yer eminence, feighin’ to deignin’ down ‘mong us lowly Bayou folk.”
Wesley would only smile and the Brewmaster would only nod, neither pausing in their work, even if that “work” looked a great deal like watching pots waiting for them to boil, so to speak. Between the Song and the new ingredients, they wouldn’t be thrown by Popcorn’s popping.
Then, with a light thud, a Moon Shinobi dropped onto the platform from the ceiling of drooping branches. The Brewmaster only turned his head slightly as the masked Tri-Chi Gremlin slid up to Wesley and whispered something in the apprentice’s pointy seashell ear. Wesley nodded, frowned, stroked the hair on his chin, tugged his topknot.
The Brewmaster waited.
“Ten Thunders again, master,” his apprentice told him finally.
The Brewmaster considered, then said, “The usual welcome, Wesley.”
Their attention crossed the yard full of snoring, thumb-sucking Gremlins and fell on a body lounging against a tree. This one wasn’t a Gremlin or any manner of worshipper, but a potbellied thug missing his Oni mask and most of his clothes. Flies buzzed around him, though that didn’t help clarify whether he was dead or merely dead drunk.
Wesley twiddled his fingers nervously, glanced at the Shinobi, and shook his head. “Not this time, master. A Katanaka leads them. They’re not far.”
The Brewmaster sighed.
“Too much fuel in yer fire, eminence?” Popcorn Turner crowed from his nest.
The Moon Shinobi disappeared into the trees again. The Brewmaster sent Wesley to hitch his wagon. “Nothing unexpected,” he replied finally, facing his competitor. “And nothing I can’t handle. Unfortunately, I have to withdraw from—”
“Withdraw the Competishine?!”
“—from the stage a moment. This shouldn’t take long.”
Full Story (7900 words): available anywhere Malifaux 3E: Bayou Faction Book is sold, like here.
Hamish “Ankles” and Ulysses “Rattrap,” aka the Dean Brothers, ran the pre-heist good luck ritual they’d perfected Earthside, mirroring each other exactly: a hundred chews on tobacco, a single spit over the left shoulder, one pull from the same bottle of whiskey, a tug on each other’s kerchief followed by a harsh slap.
“Ow!” Ankles hollered. There was blood on his lip.
Rattrap winced. “Sorry, sorry!”
“Whatcha backhandin’ me for?”
“You’re right, you’re right. ‘Tain’t the back a the hand, is it?”
Ankles stared incredulously, then grabbed his brother’s hand and forced the palm up.
“The inside, Rattrap, the inside! Where it tickles, remember?”
Rattrap nodded seriously. “You’re right, you’re right. Apologies, Ankles. I jus’ got excited, is all. Jus’ an accident.”
“Oh, an accident’s all? How d’you backhand me by accident? That’s like frownin’ when you meant to smile! Look at me, Rattrap, look at me.” Ankles modeled smiling and frowning several times over. “You see this?” he asked through strained cheeks. “Smilin’s easier than frownin’, Rattrap!”
“I comprehend what you’s sayin’, Ankles,” Rattrap said placatingly, “and I do appreciate you usin’ this metaphor rather ‘an literally slappin’ and backhandin’ me so’s to illustrate the difference. But…what now? We done interrupted—” Ankles glared at him. “—I, I done interrupted the ritual. Do we start over or…?”
Ankles considered. “No time. That’ll have to do.”
He referred to the clockwork devices they’d secured to the floorboards of the upper level. They were already ticking down, so the two wasted no more time in climbing the rickety wooden stairs.
They’d had to tunnel their way into the basement, relying on the likelihood that the bankers above forgot it existed. Time and erosion had shifted the earth and the bricks, and now the basement was exposed to the sewers. Both ignored its unpleasant smells and eerie quiet. They might have come that way in the first place, but as Ankles had said, better to dig their own entrance than risk the sewer terrors they’d been hearing about.
The stairs led to a side office currently used for storage. No one noticed the brothers slip into the foyer, where they waited in line. Rattrap tipped his bowler at the lady in front of them once she’d concluded her business. She side-eyed him and bustled out. A man with funny suspenders and a green visor barely glanced up when they approached the iron teller cage.
Ankles leaned close to the bars and said, “I’d like to make a withdrawal joke.”
“You’ll need to fill out…” the bookkeeper began, but Ankles’s last word gave him pause. He looked up, his mustache twitching. “Beg pardon?”
Ankles flashed his yellow teeth. “A withdrawal joke, mister. Ideally, a hysterical and ironical reference to mine and my partner Rattrap’s intent to rob this here establishment.”
“It being a bit o’ wordplay,” Rattrap chimed in helpfully. “In regards to ‘withdrawal,’ o’ course.”
The bookkeeper did not laugh or comply with their request, but did lose any further control of his moustache, not to mention one eyebrow.
Ankles’s face showed his disappointment. “Can’t think of none either, eh? I’d hoped you’d heard ‘em all and might supply a friendly suggestion.”
“I reckon this very interchange might suffice?” Rattrap chimed in again.
Ankles grinned and pointed at him. “An excellent point, brother! You’s a poet and a sage.”
“Pardon, Ankles, but yers has the sage,” Rattrap said as they both tugged on their kerchiefs. “I prefer rosemary, myself.”
The brown bandanas were more than they seemed. Concealed beneath were gas masks like those Freikorps mercenaries wore, stuffed with herbs for good measure. They looked more like plague masks on the Dean Brothers, owing to their buzzard-like noses.
“Gentlemen,” the bookkeeper said, clearing his throat and stifling a smirk, “if it is in fact your intent to rob a Guild bank, mightn’t it have proved prudent to conceal your identities before your arrival?”
They faced the man, who suddenly noticed the green smoke hissing up from the floor.
“He reckons these masks are for hidin’ our faces, Rattrap.”
“That don’t make no sense, Ankles. The dead can’t talk, can they?”
“Never in our adventures, Rattrap. Never in our adventures.”
“You’re right, you’re right.”
Full Story (5300 words): available for free here.
Original Fiction
An innocent sugar golem realizes her trust in humans may be misplaced. This dark fantasy short story retells both "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1816) and "Mr. Fox," Joseph Jacobs's version of the Grimm Brothers' "The Robber Bridegroom." A cousin recited "Mr. Fox" to me when I was little and I've never forgotten the grisly plot and haunting imagery. Though never a big fan of the "Nutcracker" play, I had read Hoffmann's source material as part of my college study of old/classic second-world fantasy literature and really liked the similarities between Marie's visit to the Candyland-like doll kingdom and Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World (1666).
Sample:
The enemies of the golems were no regular mice. Man-sized, they wore uniforms, helmets, and weapons, but were every bit as dishonest, greedy, and selfish as the dirty rodents they resembled. We lived in fear of them; I was built to guard against them. And these seven were no meager scouts or soldiers, but the chiefs of their mischief.
I felt I understood now. The king left me to protect our country because he came here to protect the humans. King against kings. But he was outnumbered! It wasn’t chivalrous of the mice, wasn’t fair! Surely his safety outweighed his orders. Surely this was vigilance!
But the human gave me pause. I had never seen one before. I may be graceful and smooth, but while I am hard, everything about her was soft. Everything moved, even the very surface of her skin. The lady was life, not just an imitation of it. A warm, hairy beast, but not beastly. A tall, vibrant plant, but not planted. Barefoot, billowing skirt and hair for banners, ferocity for a shield, she hoisted a double-edged sword. The golems were made in the image of humans, but I resembled that rune-carved tool more than the one who wielded it.
“Humans are special,” our king always taught. Now I saw why.
Full Story (3000 words): available anywhere Upon a Thrice Time is sold, like here.
A retelling of the Japanese folk tale "The Tengu's Magic Cloak," written especially for this anthology. Okamiko, a homeless girl, only wants to play with the villagers' children...but she is human and they are all manner of beast-people. To them, she is different and untrustworthy. Take, a bamboo stick, is her only friend, until she meets four Crows gathering rice stalks. Their plan? To build a straw samurai.
Sample:
It was not a tall man, she noted, but the size one would expect four children to construct. It had knobby fingers and split-toe feet and, built onto the more complex patterns of its interwoven straw flesh, samurai armor running in parallel lines, including rectangular shoulder and thigh plates, bundled arm and shin guards, and a kabuto helmet. Inside this was the only item not made from straw: a grimacing mempo, or facemask, carved from bamboo. Like the Choughs themselves, this was red and had a long pointed nose.
This in particular won Okamiko over; this bamboo face was like Take personified, his identity recovered from the wood. She panted through a wide grin, as if witnessing the hard work that went into the straw man was exhausting in itself. “He’s beautiful!” she said in awe.
Take agreed.
“Of course he is,” the eldest chough-girl said. “That is why we require three demonstrations with your stick. Prove to us three times that it is the Scepter of the Flying Geisha and we will trade.”
Okamiko wiped her nose, scratched her wild hair, and nodded.
Taking a deep breath, she swept Take in front of her with both hands like a katana, her elbows pointing left and right. She waited.
Full Story (6400 words): available anywhere Scarecrow is sold, like here.
